10 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 195 



Ponca as having 180 warriors. Dorsey and Thomas (1910, pt. 2, p. 

 278) give 600 as the number in 1829 and 800 in 1842. 



In his diary the Rev. Moses Merrill (1892, p. 170) estimates their 

 number as being from 800 to 1,000 in 1834. Seth K. Humphrey (1906, 

 p. 47) notes : "In 1869 their number is given [as] 768." In 1874 the 

 Government census, quoted by Fletcher and La Flesche (197, p. 51), 

 lists their number as 733. In 1880 Dorsey and Thomas (1910, p. 279) 

 give the number of Southern Ponca as 600 and Northern Ponca as 225, 

 while in 1906 they list 570 for the Southern Ponca and 263 for the 

 Northern band. 



The census of 1910 gave 875 in all, including 619 in Oklahoma and 

 193 in Nebraska. The Report of the U.S. Indian Office for 1923 was 

 1,381. The census of 1930 returned 939. In 1937 the Indian Office 

 gave 825 in Oklahoma and 397 in Nebraska. At the present time 

 figures are approximately 1,000 for the Southern Ponca and 350 for 

 the Northern Ponca, though the latter group is now so scattered as 

 to make enumeration difficult. 



ORIGINS 



At the present time, archeology, "the handmaiden of history," can 

 tell us little concerning the entrance of the Ponca into their historic 

 territory. We can, however, spell out in a rough way the penetration 

 of Middle Mississippi culture into the Prairie region, in which the 

 ancestors of the Ponca and Omaha were undoubtedly involved. Per- 

 haps the best scheme is that advanced by the archeologist James B. 

 Griffin. He suggests that some of the later sites of the Mill Creek 

 Aspect in South Dakota may represent the Ponca and Omaha, and 

 that the Middle Mississippian influences which af)pear in the Plains 

 ca. A.D. 1200-1300 are partly due to the movement of egiha-s^eBking 

 tribes into the area : 



As a working hypothesis I have proposed elsewhere that the Mississippi Pat- 

 tern influences in the Plains were the results of the movements of specific cul- 

 tural units from the Mississippi Valley. The first of these is strongly asso- 

 ciated, culturally, with sites in the Cahokia region. They moved from there into 

 the Kansas City area .... Apparently this actual movement of people modified 

 the eastern section of the Upper Republican giving rise to the Nebraska Aspect. 

 Possibly a slightly earlier or concurrent movement from the Aztalan area to the 

 west took place, producing first, the Cambria Focus in south-central Minnesota. 

 Then it moved into western Iowa to become the Mill Creek Aspect. The later 

 Mill Creek sites in South Dakota acquired Upper Republican and some Woodland 

 traits. These sites were, one might postulate, occupied by the proto-historic 

 Ponca and Omaha. [Griffin, 1946, p. 89.] 



Many archeological sites of unknown affiliation in Nebraska and 

 South Dakota, particularly in the Niobrara area, are claimed by the 

 Ponca as former villages of their people. In 1936 and 1937 the Univer- 



